Illustrative Anecdotes of the Animal Kingdom

by Samuel G. Goodrich

GALLINACEA,

RESEMBLING THE DOMESTIC HEN.

THE COCK.

The domestic cock is the origin of all the varieties of the domestic fowl, and is supposed to have come originally from Asia. It was brought to America by the first settlers.

Miscellaneous Anecdotes.—A short time since, a farmer in Ohio heard loud talking and angry words among his fowls, and, being a man of pacific disposition, bent his course towards the scene of cackling and confusion. Arrived in the vicinity, he observed his favorite cock engaged in mortal combat with a striped snake, dealing his blows with bill and spurs in quick succession, and with true pugilistic skill. But the wily serpent, well aware that, in order to beat his powerful antagonist, he must use cunning, seized him by the thigh in the rear. Thus situated, the cock rose on his wings, and lighted on an apple-tree, the snake keeping fast hold, and dangling down like a taglock. It then coiled its tail round a branch of the tree. The cock tried again to escape, but, not being able to disengage himself, hung with his head down. In this melancholy situation he was found by the farmer, who instantly killed the snake, and set chanticleer at liberty.

The following is a remarkable instance of the degree to which the natural apprehension for her brood may be overcome, in the hen, by the habit of nursing ducks. A hen, who had reared three broods of ducks in three successive years, became habituated to their taking the water, and would fly to a large stone in the middle of the pond, and patiently and quietly watch her brood as they swam about it. The fourth year she hatched her own eggs, and finding that her chickens did not take to the water as the ducklings had done, she flew to the stone in the pond, and called them to her with the utmost eagerness. This recollection of the habits of her former charge, though it had taken place a year before, is strongly illustrative of memory in a hen.

"I have just witnessed," says Count de Buffon, "a curious scene. A sparrow-hawk alighted in a populous court-yard; a young cock, of this year's hatching, instantly darted at him, and threw him on his back. In this situation, the hawk, defending himself with his talons and his bill, intimidated the hens and turkeys, which screamed tumultuously around him. After having a little recovered himself, he rose and was taking wing; when the cock rushed upon him a second time, upset him, and held him down so long, that he was easily caught by a person who witnessed the conflict."

THE PHEASANT.

This splendid bird was brought originally from Asia, but it is now common in Europe, especially in the parks and preserves of England, where it lives in a wild state.

Anecdotes.—"It is not uncommon," says Warwick, "to see an old pheasant feign itself wounded, and run along the ground, fluttering and crying, before either dog or man, to draw them away from its helpless, unfledged young ones. As I was hunting with a young pointer, the dog ran on a brood of very small pheasants; the old bird cried, fluttered, and ran tumbling along just before the dog's nose, till she had drawn him to a considerable distance, when she took wing, and flew still farther off. On this the dog returned to me, near the place where the young ones were still concealed in the grass. This the old bird no sooner perceived, than she flew back again to us, settled just before the dog's nose, and, by rolling and tumbling about, drew off his attention from her young, thus preserving them a second time."